Download Against Astrology

Disenchantment
Matt Phillpott
Astrology
For Astrology
John Webster (1611-1682) Schoolmaster and polemicist
(see Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Antonio Clericuzio, 2004)
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1630s studied chemistry at Whitechapel.
1632 ordanied as a minister to a the pairsih of Kildwick, near Skipton,
Yorkshire.
1637 deprived of his living for radical sympathies.
1643 appointed master of the grammar school of Clitheroe.
1653: delivered sermons at London at All Hallows and attacked the idea of a
professional clergy. He advocated the right of free interpretation of the
Scriptures and denied that human learning could have any role in ensuring
redemption.
He maintained the view that the devil was not physical but a synonym of the
depraved condition of the human soul.
1653 took part in a dispute on who could give orders to ministers.
Webster published his Academiarum examen the following year, which was a
fierce attack on universities for their claim to providing training for the clergy
and for their scholastic curricula. He also attacked Episcopalians,
Presbyterians, and Independents alike.
Not personally familiar with Universities or educated in astronomy.
John Webster, Academiarum Examen [The examination of academies wherein is
discussed and examined the matter, method and customes of academick and
scholastick learning, and the insufficiency thereof discovered and lain open: as
also some expedients proposed for the reforming of schools, and the perfecting
and promoting of all kind of science] (London, 1654).
‘What shall I say of the Science, or art of Astrology...shall the Academies who have
not only sleighted and neglected it, but also scoffed at it, terrifie me from expressing
my thoughts of so noble and beneficial a Science? shall the arguments of Picus
Mirandula, and others, who have bitterly inveighed against it, fright me from owning
the truth? shall the thundering Pulpit men, who would have all mens faith pinned
upon their sleeves, and usually condemn all things they understand not, make me be
silent in so just a cause? No truly, I must needs defend that which my judgement
evidences to me to be laudable, and profitable; not but that I utterly condemn the
ignorance, knavery, and impostorage of many pretending Sciolists, that abuse the
same; but shall the art of medicine or Chymistry be condemned, and rejected, because
many ignorant Empericks, and false Alcumists do profess them? Surely no, let the
blame be upon the professors, not upon the profession it self. For the art it self is high,
noble, excellent, and useful to all mankind, and is a study not unbeseeming the best
wits, and greatest Scholars, and no way offensive to God or true Religion.’
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Disenchantment
Matt Phillpott
Astrology
Against Astrology
Seth Ward (1617-1689) Astronomer and bishop of Exeter and Salisbury
(see Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, John Henry, 2004)
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Son of an attorney.
Educated at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge
Graduated BA 1637 and MA 1640.
Tutored by Samuel Ward (the College master) in mathematical sciences.
In 1644 refused to swar to the covenant (Anglo-Scottish alliance to unite
against Charles I).
 1650 became professor of astronomy at Oxford.
 He reinstated the University’s astronomy lectures, which had been
discontinued for some time.
 1653 Ward published on the nature of comets.
 1654 in association with John Wilkins (warden and leading member of the
group of natural philosophers in the city at that time) defended English
universities from John Webster.
 1659-Restoration: Ward president of Trinity College, Oxford.
 1660 resigned and settled in London as vicar, then at Exeter, then Sailsbury.
 After leaving Oxford Ward did not continue his interest in astronomy.
Ward was part of a group promoting the idea of a universal language to describe ‘new
ideas’.
Seth Ward, Vindiciae Academiarum containing some briefe animadversions upon
Mr Websters book stiled, The examination of academies: together with an appendix
concerning what M. Hobbs and M. Dell have published on this argument (Oxford,
1654).
‘But the mischiefe is, we are not given to Astrology, a sad thing, that men will not
forsake the study of Arts and Languages, and give themselves up to this high and
Noble Art or Science, he knowes not what to call it: Nay call it that ridiculous cheat,
made up of nonsence and contradictions, founded only upon the dishonesty of
Impostors, and the frivolous curiosity of silly people, so as none but one initiated in
the Academy of Bethlem, would require of us, that we should be Philosophers and
Mathematicians, and yet not to have outgrowne this gullery. I speake not to him (for
he understands as much of Astrology as of other things) but to those he so highly
adores (for one of whom viz. Mr Ashmole, I have a very good respect)...Lastly, the
vertues of the Planets themselves, that they are hot and cold, male and female &c. is
ridiculously founded; who ever felt the heat of Mars, or cold of Saturne? The whole
Theory is formed with respect to the Peripateticall System, the conceit of the foure
Elements, and if they should be granted, conduce nothing to the fortune-telling which
they professe.’
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Disenchantment
Matt Phillpott
Astrology
Background Information
Some key changes
Intellectual: In the latter half of the sixteenth century Nicolaus Copernicus (14731543) proposed that the sun, and not the earth, was the centre of the universe. During
the next century further discoveries concerning the cosmos (such as Johannes Kepler
who proposed in 1609 that the planets moved in elliptical orbits around the sun and
Galileo who in 1610 revealed that Jupiter had moons orbitting it). These new
discoveries in astronomy, mathematics and philosophy were beginning to challenge
accepted knowledge. In 1660 the Royal Society of London was founded. This, and
similar societies slowly began to revise accepted science.
Political: During the 1640s England had been split by Civil war which had ended
with the exectuion of King Charles I and the rise of Oliver Cromwell as Lord
Protector (1653). During the 1650s Cromwell ruled England as a virtual military
dictator. These events reflect a break with the past and an oppotunity for long held
views and beliefs to be challenged.
Glossery
Academies
Universities
Picus Mirandula
Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (1463-1494): Italian
philosopher and scholar.
Pulpit men
Preachers
Sciolists
One who exhibits only superficial knowledge; a selfproclaimed expert with little real understanding.
Empericks
(emperics) One who is guided by practical experience rather
than precepts or theory. A unqualified or dishonest practitioner
often visited by the poorer people.
Bethlem
Refering to the mental hospital: Behlem Hospital (Bedlam) in
London.
Syzyges
Astronomical term for unity or alignment
Peripateticall system A system of philosophy deriving from Ancient Greece.
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